Chris Christie on punishing drug users: If we’re going to be pro-life, let’s be pro-life all the way

posted at 5:21 pm on April 17, 2014 by Allahpundit

I’m torn between thinking this is a remarkably deft answer, especially off the cuff, on a difficult subject and thinking he’s leaving himself too exposed to counterattacks from the left by pushing it. On the one hand, and ironically, it reminds me of something his nemesis Rand Paul would say insofar as it frames a libertarian-ish position in socially conservative terms. Christie’s not for legalizing drugs but he does think prison is wildly overused vis-a-vis treatment. He’s called before, flatly, for ending the war on drugs. That’s not a mainstream opinion on the right but, he thinks, maybe he can help make it one by framing it as a subset of the pro-life movement. Some religious conservative groups have been willing to break from GOP orthodoxy on other social issues — prison reform, for instance, and of course immigration — so why not give them an opening on this too? It’s a clever way for Christie to protect his right flank, defending one of his more left-ish positions by claiming it’s an outgrowth of his commitment to a conservative stance on abortion.

On the other hand, liberals have been using this line, that the GOP is pro-life only up to the moment of birth, to smack conservatives for ages. I remember George Carlin even doing a bit on it at least 20 years ago. It popped up during the ObamaCare debate: Why do “pro-life” people oppose expanding medical coverage to the uninsured knowing that it’ll save lives? (Christie, who agreed to a “small” expansion of Medicaid in Jersey under O-Care, might even agree!) You could, if you like, easily justify any other form of welfare-state expansion in similar terms. If you’re pro-life, you must be pro-unemployment-insurance and certainly pro-food-stamps under all circumstances, and lord knows you’re pro-Medicare no matter what that means budget-wise. At the very least, having floated this as a sort of guiding principle in his policy preferences, lefties can make him defend his entire record in the same terms. And so, of course, can Paul. Christie’s expected to be the hawks’ champion if/when he runs in 2016. What do you think the more dovish Paul will do with his idea that conservatives need to be “pro-life” in all respects?

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Obviously the fat has gone to his brain. Methinks there’s a slight difference between a defenseless baby in the womb that has no lawyers or advocates or appeals, and a teenage drggy who is CHOOSING to engage in illicit behavior.

Chris Christie on punishing drug users: If we’re going to be pro-life, let’s be pro-life all the way

So… I know he gets a pass since NJ doesn’t have the punishment, but if we’re going all the pay; pin the fat man down on the death penalty. If you’re President is there no crime against Americans that doesn’t merit death? And would you enforce the law if you were President?

Sounds like he doesn’t grasp the difference between an innocent life and one that is not.

No death penalty of course, but what about police and the military? Does being pro-life mean you have to abolish the military? I don’t think he even grasps what he is actually saying which is typical of leftists.

We have the widespread drug problem in this country because we re not serious about punishment. We re fighting a two front war on one front and wonder why we re losing ground. If we continue to prosecute only the supply side and turn a blind eye to demand, then we might as well go ahead and legalize the crap. These craven middle-of-the-road-positions are of no use whatsoever.

Testimony and drugs buys under police supervision for the purpose of identification are ways law enforcement uses prosecution of low level addicts to build a prosecutorial case against mid-level dealers.

Treatment is most certainly the preferred remedy but many states are barren of good treatment facilities. I can personally attest to that here in the liberal never-neverland of Maryland. However, the best way to convince the young and invincible teen to stay away from drugs is to make him feel the legal pain of his decisions before managing the physical pain becomes his sole reason for existence. Jail, for a period of time that doesn’t exceed a few months, is often the best thing that could ever happen to them –provided, they receive adequate drug treatment in preparation for their release. That’s hugely important.

“[T]he life of the drug addicted teenager who has been arrested for the sixth time is just as precious as the lives of any one of my children.”

Um….. no fat man. The drug-addicted teenager who has been arrested for the sixth time is a repeat offender. Given that campaign ad disguised as a “stronger than the storm” ad shows that your kids are addicted to eating not drugs (wonder where they got that from). The 45-year-old prosecutor who was practicing law under the influence of drugs might have caused real harm to innocent people.

Good job in positioning yourself for the Dems VEEP slot in 2016 you filthy fat bastard.

yes, addiction is powerful. but there are medicines and other ways to stop addiction. a crime is a crime. there’s only so much you can use “i can’t help it” as an excuse.

Sachiko on April 17, 2014 at 5:37 PM

Really? So as long as slavery was legal, it was the law? Jim Crow? hey the law was the law, remember? Have you ever been addicted? This a absolutely guarantee you, overcoming a drug addiction is 100 times harder than anything you have ever done in your life or ever will. Nobody ever grows up wanting to be a drug addict. Nobody ever dies a drug addict because they want to.

The guy is like Romney on abortion, he was pro-choice just a few years ago. And what gets me is his wishy-washy approach where he says he wants to end the war on drugs but still keep drugs illegal? A double talker. It’s clear as day that after Portugal decriminalization of ALL drugs… drug use went down. As evidence check out this article (and many others if you google it).

Regardless, to think that Christie is going to appeal to the right is ridiculous. He still is one of the few “Republicans” that full on accepts everything the leftist scare mongering Chicken Littles say about global warming er climate change:

Chris Christie:

“Climate change is real.. It’s time to defer to the experts

Bull. He said this over two years after the same politically driven leftist “experts” were caught manipulating the data to dupe the public. Remember Hide the Decline? And what about the 17 years of no warming?? Why does Christie continue to walk with the leftists despite the evidence being otherwise?

“They’re nothing more than domestic terrorists,” Reid said during an appearance at a Las Vegas Review-Journal “Hashtags & Headlines” event at the Paris. “I repeat: what happened there was domestic terrorism.”

They’re gushing over the fact that the devil’s spawn of Bill and Killary is now expecting an evil-doer of its own.

I guess we should be happy that she didn’t decide to kill it since that would mean it is a punishment of her political aspirations. But in reality, this child is necessary as a prop just like Chelsea Clinton was and the Obama brats are. Part of the facade growing up among adults who don’t give a damn about them as human beings.

DENVER (AP) — A Wyoming college student visiting Denver on spring break jumped to his death after eating a marijuana cookie that his friend legally purchased in one of Colorado’s recreational pot shops, authorities said Wednesday.

An autopsy report lists marijuana intoxication as a “significant contributing factor” in the death of 19-year-old Levy Thamba Pongi, a native of the Republic of Congo who fell from a motel balcony on March 11.

It marked the first time the Denver medical examiner’s office has listed a marijuana edible as a contributor to a death, said Michelle Weiss-Samaras, a spokeswoman for the office.

“We have not had that,” she said.

Investigators believe Pongi and his friends came to Colorado to try marijuana, Weiss-Samaras said.
(More…………)
===================

They’re gushing over the fact that the devil’s spawn of Bill and Killary is now expecting an evil-doer of its own.

I guess we should be happy that she didn’t decide to kill it since that would mean it is a punishment of her political aspirations. But in reality, this child is necessary as a prop just like Chelsea Clinton was and the Obama brats are. Part of the facade growing up among adults who don’t give a damn about them as human beings.

Happy Nomad on April 17, 2014 at 6:02 PM

Happy Nomad: Yups:)

Zeke Miller ‏@ZekeJMiller 1h

RT @PhilipRucker: BREAKING: Chelsea announces first child due later this year

1) putting a person in prison or jail does not give them incentive to quit using drugs.

2) addiction is not like liking chocolate.

3) Prison is graduate school for criminals, it does not rehabilitate them.

You guys taking your supposed harda$$ stances against drugs don’t make you uber cool conservatives, it makes you useful idiots for the government. Take your brains out of your rear ends and use them for something other than a place to sit.

Who profits from filling our jails and prisons with drug addicts? Yes, 70 percent of all American’s currently incarcerated are there on drug charges.

You whine and cry about the government being to big, to bloated, to expensive and to overreaching, but when your damned strings are pulled, just like good little puppets you prove that you cannot hold a single intelligent thought in your heads to save your lives.

Who profits from drug addicts being put in jail or prison, the cops who have to be hired and armed like storm troopers. The Courts whose judges create laws out of thin air to suit their political agenda. The correctional system who incarcerated prisoners. The parole and probation systems which monitor and track people upon their release from prison, thus ensuring that those individuals remain a part of the system.

how many of you objected to the BLM sending armed goon to round up Cliven Bundy’s cattle? You objected in one breathy to citizens being abused by armed thugs, and in the very next, in an act of perverse hypocritical self deception you argue for citizens being brutally subjected to the3 tactics of armed thugs following orders from bureaucrats and politicians who themselves are not subject to the laws they inflict on everyone else.

Don’t even. Stick your complaints that I am up your a$$. I can’t stand Chris Christy, but he is right. You are either Pro-Life or you are not. If you are attacking Christy on this issue, it’s because you hate Christy and are not honest enough to admit that no matter what he says, you are going to hate him and attack him. You are absolutely no different or better than the liberal low information idiots you claim to hate.

1) putting a person in prison or jail does not give them incentive to quit using drugs.

2) addiction is not like liking chocolate.

3) Prison is graduate school for criminals, it does not rehabilitate them.

You guys taking your supposed harda$$ stances against drugs don’t make you uber cool conservatives, it makes you useful idiots for the government. Take your brains out of your rear ends and use them for something other than a place to sit.

Who profits from filling our jails and prisons with drug addicts? Yes, 70 percent of all American’s currently incarcerated are there on drug charges.

You whine and cry about the government being to big, to bloated, to expensive and to overreaching, but when your damned strings are pulled, just like good little puppets you prove that you cannot hold a single intelligent thought in your heads to save your lives.

Who profits from drug addicts being put in jail or prison, the cops who have to be hired and armed like storm troopers. The Courts whose judges create laws out of thin air to suit their political agenda. The correctional system who incarcerated prisoners. The parole and probation systems which monitor and track people upon their release from prison, thus ensuring that those individuals remain a part of the system.

how many of you objected to the BLM sending armed goon to round up Cliven Bundy’s cattle? You objected in one breathy to citizens being abused by armed thugs, and in the very next, in an act of perverse hypocritical self deception you argue for citizens being brutally subjected to the3 tactics of armed thugs following orders from bureaucrats and politicians who themselves are not subject to the laws they inflict on everyone else.

Don’t even. Stick your complaints that I am up your a$$. I can’t stand Chris Christy, but he is right. You are either Pro-Life or you are not. If you are attacking Christy on this issue, it’s because you hate Christy and are not honest enough to admit that no matter what he says, you are going to hate him and attack him. You are absolutely no different or better than the liberal low information idiots you claim to hate.

oscarwilde on April 17, 2014 at 6:14 PM

Prison is for punishing illegal activity.

Illegal activity should be punished. That’s why I’m pro-justice.

If you think all drugs should legal and available, then you have lost all credibility. There is a reason why drugs are illegal.

Yeah, your over-the-top comment just beat all the people who complained about Palin not aborting Trig.

jim56 on April 17, 2014 at 6:18 PM

Not really, you think that Chelsea and the pajama boy who married her are going to care about this child? Pajama boy is just as much a prop to the Clinton’s aspirations as is the child. Quick- without doing an internet search tell me what Mr. Chelsea Clinton’s name is and what he does for a living.

Really? So as long as slavery was legal, it was the law? Jim Crow? hey the law was the law, remember? Have you ever been addicted? This a absolutely guarantee you, overcoming a drug addiction is 100 times harder than anything you have ever done in your life or ever will. Nobody ever grows up wanting to be a drug addict. Nobody ever dies a drug addict because they want to.

oscarwilde on April 17, 2014 at 5:54 PM

Well, wilde one, I must confess to making fun of marijuana users every chance I get. Same with all drugs. I also dislike heroin users because they fund Al Qaeda and other users. I am VERY conflicted about legalizing drugs.

Having said that, I think I have to agree with you (sorry). Too many innocent people dying in this war. A judge in Colombia, a 12 year old walking down the street in Chicago, a town in Mexico. A cop, anywhere.

Too many excuses to break down doors and shoot old guys in their beds.

That 16 year old has a chance. A chance is the essence of being pro-life.

A murderer on death row has a 3-5% recidivism rate if let go, and costs up to 50k per year to keep in jail. That’s why pro-life doesn’t extend to the death penalty. (because someone will try)

If you think all drugs should legal and available, then you have lost all credibility. There is a reason why drugs are illegal.

Bigbullets on April 17, 2014 at 6:23 PM

Raw milk is illegal. Lead bullets in California. Alcohol used to be. Releasing a helium balloon in New Hampshire. Married woman cutting her hair without her husband’s permission in Minnesota (I actually like that one)

Raw milk is illegal. Lead bullets in California. Alcohol used to be. Releasing a helium balloon in New Hampshire. Married woman cutting her hair without her husband’s permission in Minnesota (I actually like that one)

I guess we all belong in jail.

WryTrvllr on April 17, 2014 at 6:34 PM

okay cool, i guess we might as well ignore all laws altogether then. i guess no one belongs in jail.

Don’t even. Stick your complaints that I am up your a$$. I can’t stand Chris Christy, but he is right. You are either Pro-Life or you are not. If you are attacking Christy on this issue, it’s because you hate Christy and are not honest enough to admit that no matter what he says, you are going to hate him and attack him. You are absolutely no different or better than the liberal low information idiots you claim to hate.
oscarwilde on April 17, 2014 at 6:14 PM

Yes. Take your “I care more than you” sense of smug self-satisfaction and stick it up your a$$.
Either drugs are legal and you’ll have people destroying their lives or they aren’t and people pay the punishment for skirting the law.

You’re not pro-life at all you’re pro-nanny where either the government has to stop people from abusing themselves or coming to their rescue when they abuse themselves.

How about pro-personal responsibility? How about if the government gets out of drug regulation altogether and if somebody needs to abuse drugs and destroy their life they have the LIBERTY to do so but they bear the costs of it.

But you don’t understand that just like you can’t understand people standing up to father government to defend their rights and their personal responsibilities.

Odds are that the teenage drug addict Christie is referencing has done a lot of damage on the way to collecting that sixth drug offense.

I’m open to arguments about legalizing drugs, but coming from sturdy white trash stock a fact of life with drug abusers is that it does not take long for it to become something more than just a private choice. Substance abusers often lie, cheat, steal, lose their jobs, commit crimes to support their habit, neglect/abuse/betray their families, and/or become a burden on the welfare system. Not everyone who tries drugs ends up this way, but a lot of them do, and if drugs are legalized/decriminalized the overall consequences may be disastrous. Perhaps that isn’t a reason to ban illegal drugs, but it’s a reality that needs to be acknowledged in the debate.

I’d advise Christie that perhaps he needs to be a little more “pro life” towards the victims of the addicts who are committing crimes to subsidize their habit, or the parents who have been stolen from or attacked by their children, or the innocent kids who have the misfortune to be be neglected or abused by their strung-out parents. Or more to the point, I would advise that if I thought the two issues had anything to do with each other, which they don’t. One’s opinions on how to deal with drug abusers has absolutely no connection to whether one thinks a woman should be able to kill her unborn child up until the moment of birth.

But for now, it seems an easy excuse to brand pro-lifers as hypocrites if they don’t agree with his other positions. Pretty nasty of him, but absolutely expected.

I’ve never done an illegal drug in my life. Never. I have, however, puked on a state troopers shoes. I had the sense to pull over to the side and then fell asleep until awoken by a knock on the window.

Any type of intoxication can be dangerous. I also think, as marijuana use becomes more commonplace, there will be far more deleterious effects discovered.

Until such time. Something like 1/2 the people in jail are there on drug charges. Most of the gang murders are drug related.

Don’t even. Stick your complaints that I am up your a$$. I can’t stand Chris Christy, but he is right. You are either Pro-Life or you are not. If you are attacking Christy on this issue, it’s because you hate Christy and are not honest enough to admit that no matter what he says, you are going to hate him and attack him. You are absolutely no different or better than the liberal low information idiots you claim to hate.
oscarwilde on April 17, 2014 at 6:14 PM

Are you another one of those idiots that seriously don’t understand the difference between defenseless babies and adult or near-adult making choices?

Raw milk is illegal. Lead bullets in California. Alcohol used to be. Releasing a helium balloon in New Hampshire. Married woman cutting her hair without her husband’s permission in Minnesota (I actually like that one)

I guess we all belong in jail.

WryTrvllr on April 17, 2014 at 6:34 PM

Drugs were illegal before the stupid really took over. Those things are illegal BECAUSE the stupid took over.

“Why do pro-life people oppose expanding medical coverage to the uninsured knowing that it will save lives?”

In addition to the comparisons given by the author of the article there is simple response. WE AEN”T OPPOSED! We attempted to have heath care legislation passed that would make possible for people to carry over coverage from one job to the next. We also attempted to make it possible for the inter-state sale of insurance……..the socialist alternative won. Forcing 300 million to change the way they are covered (or not covered any longer)while saddling them with higher rates and not covering the intended 15 million.

Governor Christie and the establishment republicans are concerned with “Big Government” not limited government.

I’m for leaving it up to the States for all legalization issues, including prostitution (hello, Nevada!). That said, much more resources should be committed to treatment, and in particular, mental health, as many addicts are self-medicating their demons. Better mental health facilities and de-stigmatizing this illness will also round up more would-be mass shooters.

Let the curious experiment, if they get addicted, they pay their own way for treatment (or private charities can pay for treatment centers).

We’ve given our police forces way too much power and way too much trust in the process of fighting drug abuse via incarceration and mandatory minimums. As a result, prisons are overcrowded, innocent lives are ruined thanks to a felony record, too many mistakes are made in no-knock raids and throughout it all, those illegal drugs are STILL easy to access.

Face it. If you want drugs completely eradicated from our country, or even cut down to a minimal level, you’re gonna have to enact an extremely invasive police/surveillance state. Is that what you really want? All just to make sure Junior never gets his hands on a joint?

The second part, disrespect isn’t buying the bling, weapons, and ammo.

WryTrvllr on April 17, 2014 at 8:03 PM

Thats kind of a non sequitur.
I never claimed anything about bling etc. The point was the gang murders.
Unless the “bling”, ammo, and weapons are stolen from the victims, they cannot be reasonably pointed to as the cause of the violence.

That said, if drugs were legal and the citizens of the area, neighborhood, etc, were allowed to defend themselves with arms and unchecked power to organize, plan and carry out…ummmmm…”neighborhood improvement policies” or “community safety actions”, free from the threat of legal action, I would be able to have that on the table. Unchecked behavior should be unchecked behavior in any set of coexisting circumstances. Can’t be for one “right” without being for the other and be consistent.

The English/Rothschild East India Company was famous for trading tea and opium, among others. Laudanum was ubiquitous in the US at the turn of the century. And yet the nation was thriving.

And, with regards to non sequitur, only partially. It’s the drug culture paying for the drive-by’s and funding the gangs.

WryTrvllr on April 17, 2014 at 8:34 PM

The nation was thriving in certain areas. It was a young nation, of a relatively small population. There is no way to honestly transfer that to modern times anymore than transferring any of a number lifestyles from the days of yore.

.
Uninsured … who ? … “Minors” ? … I’m pretty sure that there’s not much opposition to taxpayer sponsored medical insurance for uninsured kids.
.
What pro-lifers are against is ‘irresponsibility’ on the part of individual people.
.
Teenagers (never mind adults) should be able to resist the temptation of using mind-altering drugs, for the expressed purpose of pleasure/recreation.

If you believe that is too much of a ‘yoke-of-burden’ for today’s, contemporary American teenagers to bear, then what do you believe is NOT … too much of a ‘yoke-of-burden’ for today’s, contemporary American teenagers to bear ?

Where do you draw the line, separating persons from whom you don’t expect much responsible behavior, from those you do ?

It’s true that no one who has never been addicted understands addiction, and it’s true that addicts are victims, and it’s true that an addict steps over a line where they’ve handed some significant part of their will over to a chemical that will probably kill them. The real, end of the day options are to believe that addicts no longer have any say in the matter, and to rehabilitate them by force; or to believe they still have a choice in the matter, and let them make it. This isn’t a conversation we’ve had.

If you listen to Christie’s remarks as they are presented, he begins by saying not much more than “the gift of life” given to addicts is just as valuable as “the gift of life” given to anyone else. “The gift of life” if my interpretation of his word “life.” (He doesn’t seem to be espousing Buddhism or white-witchcraft or any sort of deifying of life itself, and he isn’t arguing that an addicts life, as a work-product, is just as important as anyone else’s.) The sum of his remarks seem to put him firmly into the “addicts no longer have a say in the matter” camp.

So, I assume he will go the full length: Addicts no longer have a say in the matter, and we must identify them and rehabilitate them by force. He actually says we should offer them “a helping hand.” Someone should ask him if he means arresting them, institutionalizing them, and rehabilitating them by force when he says offer them a helping hand.

If you think all drugs should legal and available, then you have lost all credibility. There is a reason why drugs are illegal.

Bigbullets on April 17, 2014 at 6:23 PM

The stupid really is strong with you isn’t it. You’re not pro-justice you are pro totalitarianism.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. CS Lewis

Being pro-justice would be being in favor of laws that are actually Just. Yes, there most assuredly is a reason that drugs are illegal, but it is equally certain that you have no idea what the reason is.

oscarwilde on April 17, 2014 at 6:14 PM

How many drug addicts do you personally know? And you aware there is a difference between jail and prison, right?

BKeyser on April 17, 2014 at 6:35 PM

More than I can count. I was a drug addict for 20 years, I’ve been clean for 15. I assure you, I am far more aware of the difference between jail and prison than you are.

That said, much more resources should be committed to treatment, and in particular, mental health, as many addicts are self-medicating their demons. Better mental health facilities and de-stigmatizing this illness will also round up more would-be mass shooters.

John the Libertarian on April 17, 2014 at 8:05 PM

I couldn’t agree more. Drug addition should not be a criminal issue, it should be a medical issue. AIDS is a viral infection that is contracted 95% of the time through a activity that is engaged in willfully by those who contract it, but we do not arrest and criminalize individuals infected with the HIV virus.

Yes, I am pro life, my moral position on abortion mirrors my position on the death penalty. Both abortion and the death penalty should be used only under the most restricted of situations. Abortion only when the life of the mother is genuinely at risk, the death penalty, only when their is 100 percent certainty of guilt and only when the charge is first degree murder.

Christie’s not calling for legalizing drugs and neither am I.

Teenagers (never mind adults) should be able to resist the temptation of using mind-altering drugs, for the expressed purpose of pleasure/recreation.

If you believe that is too much of a ‘yoke-of-burden’ for today’s, contemporary American teenagers to bear, then what do you believe is NOT … too much of a ‘yoke-of-burden’ for today’s, contemporary American teenagers to bear ?

Where do you draw the line, separating persons from whom you don’t expect much responsible behavior, from those you do ?

listens2glenn on April 17, 2014 at 9:45 PM

Right… That’s why they are not allowed to drive before the age of 16, consent to sexual activity, purchase tobacco, sign a legally binding contract until 18, be 21 to purchase alcohol.